


Revenant

by katherineerosee



Series: Avoiding The Afterlife [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 03:24:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4331952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katherineerosee/pseuds/katherineerosee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something inside him ached. Something deep within him, something warm and balmy; a scratch left forever un-itched, a persistent tickle. If he placed a cool palm against his chest he could feel it fluttering there against his ribs in a mock imitation of a heartbeat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revenant

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, so I did another thing (I seem to do this a lot...)
> 
> Anyway, this one is a bit different from the last one, and I've been playing around with it for the past few days, because it really feels like I need to fix something up or add/delete something from it, but I can't figure out what that is, so I'm just rolling with it.
> 
> It's got some plot-holes, I know (I essentially don't explain how the 'Character Death' gets fixed - but this is a quick oneshot - I'm sorry). 
> 
> Yeah, so, enjoy.
> 
> I don't own FFVII, otherwise a remake would have came out ages ago and all the characters would live happily ever after - noT BE DEAD.

Something inside him ached. Something deep within him, something warm and balmy; a scratch left forever un-itched, a persistent tickle. If he placed a cool palm against his chest he could feel it fluttering there against his ribs in a mock imitation of a heartbeat. The few things that kept him human – the warmth of his skin, the pulse on his wrist, the beat of his heart – they had vanished all too quickly to adjust to; washed away with the blood in the rain. He couldn't say how long he had waited for his useless breathing to permanently even out, for his head to stop spinning and for the panic to settle, but he knew it didn't come quickly.

In those moments of panic - where his legs would curl to his chest, his hands gripping his calves tightly, and his unwavering mako gaze would linger on equally blue orbs and shining hair- he recalled missing the small, once inconsequential, things. The way sunlight would shine on his skin, warm and soothing, and the way his eyes would blur and unfocus if he gazed at the sky. The way gentle breezes would caress the exposed skin of his arms, and the tickling scent of flowers that seemed to always linger on the air. Most of all though, he missed his best friend. The elated smiles, the crinkle of eyebrows and previously invisible dimples shining when laughter abruptly ripped through his lips, the casual elbow and knee bumps as they walked side by side – it was all gone. Vanished. Just like his humanity; ripped from his cold, dead hands.

He wanted it back, more than anything he had ever wanted in his life. He wanted to walk into his best friend's bedroom and ruffle him from sleep, to playfully elbow him and grab the blankets and rip them off. He wanted to run his fingers through unmanageable bed-head, and drink steaming hot coffee at the rise of dawn. He wanted anything more than _this_.

Standing there at the edge of the bedroom, shaky breaths and choked sobs, weakened knees and trembling lips. He wanted to open the blinds and feel the warm sunlight on his skin and the fuzziness of his eyes as they adjusted to the blazing light. He wanted to crawl over the bed and collapse on it, to brush his fingers gently against the man’s forehead – just to check that he was still really there – and curl around his body like a languid cat. He wanted to grab the man's body and cling to it, never let it go, _never let him go_.

He could almost see it; the blankets shifted gently and for a moment he thought the tears would cease, but he was wrong. They still stubbornly blurred around the cerulean lens, and they probably would continue to do so until the day he died, until he joined him here. The ache heightened at the thought.

Clothed legs emerged from the dark covers, feet gently tapping against the floor, before the rest of his body joined it. Brushing the blankets back he stood, his stance wavering and shuddering before he was able to right himself by placing a hand on the bedframe. A terrifying thought overwhelmed him; was the illness overtaking him? An even more terrifying thought overtook that one; how much would he care? They would finally be together again – was that all that mattered to him now?

Wallowing in his thoughts as the man crossed the room, he almost missed the way he faltered to the window, his fingers gripping the blinds and ripping them open; exposing the room to the intensifying break of dawn. The light shone right through him.

"Zackery..." He'd never called him that before, nor had he spoken in what felt like days. His voice was husky now, deeper than he recalled and had a tinge in it that sounded like the definition of grief; of suffering and melancholy. He’d missed the soft baritone, but at least he was able to talk now, no longer catatonic and blank, at least now he was _something, someone again_.

The ache was unbearable, fluttering and stuttering against his chest in uneven and disorientating rhythms. He wondered if it'd ever truly go away, or if every time he lay eyes on him it would increase to excruciating waves of fire across his nerves; where the bullet holes and slices, cuts and scrapes and bruises would feel akin to a lover’s caress, a soft sweep of agony flaring across his transparent skin.

His feet swept across the carpeted floor, heavy boots clunking silently and clothes swaying gently despite the lack of breeze. His legs carried him forward, toward his saviour and his downfall, and he fell to his knees.

The blonde’s back was to him, but that didn't matter. His gloved hands ghosted over slim hips and rested at his waist in a derisive embrace that he knew he couldn't feel; this was just for him anyway. Head tipping forward, his forehead bumped against his lower back, and if his vocal cords still worked, a strangled scream would've left his throat. He was gone.

He felt shifting beneath his clothed fingertips and against his head, and so he raised his eyes. "I know you're there," his voice was less gruff than before, softer and surprisingly calmer, "I know you." Blue eyes met blue, and then he knew.

Soft hands grabbed his own in a tender grip, fingers curling around his and the blonde joined him on the floor. Knee to knee, eye to eye, and hands joined; he felt his prayers were answered for once.

"You can see me." His voice was more serene than he'd intended, in fact he almost sounded calm, even though his mind was a mess of turbulence and whiplash and his voice had been unused for so long.

The eyes softened further, a frown pulling at his lips and drooping his already creased eyebrows. "No," he focused on the ground beneath them, "I can't." His eyes flashed back up again, soft, tender. “But I can _feel_ you,” one of the blonde’s hands slipped out of his and stuttered about in the air for a moment before finding his jaw and settling on it, the slim digits caressed his cheek softly, “I can _feel_ you, Zack.”

Something akin to mako haze clouded his eyes, and he was startled by the slow lines of tears streaking down his face; the clear droplets slipping across his cheek, next to Cloud’s pale fingers and dribbling off his chin. He watched, surprised, as tiny stains appeared on the carpet where the tears had fallen – was he closer to life than he thought? Close enough that –

“Don’t cry,” Cloud’s soft baritone was barely more than a whisper, almost overpowered by the whirring of machinery in the rebuilt city below. “Please Zack, I need you to smile,” more tears welled at the corners of Cloud’s shimmering orbs, the cerulean smudged and glowing with mako and the rising sun, “if you can’t smile, how could I?”

The words slipped through his lips; “I can feel you too, Cloud,” and that was it. Their arms bent and stretched, winding around each other’s torsos and gripping tightly, the air almost squeezed out of Cloud’s lungs, and the oddly warm sensation of Cloud’s arms surrounding Zack’s non-existent torso.  They gripped each other with all the force they could muster in their enhanced bodies – body.

The sun’s ever present glow was the painful reminder Cloud needed – but _didn’t want_ – and sent a shock of terror through his system. The sun shone _through_ him; Zack’s image a mere shadow to be eradicated in the sun’s light. It was a rude awakening from a delightful dream, a pressing matter that couldn’t be ignored any longer; Zack was _here_ not in the _Lifestream_ where he _belonged_. Zack had stubbornly clung to his remaining humanity and held on tight through the rough ride to the afterlife, much like he had held onto Cloud when they escaped Nibelheim.

Cloud couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps _he_ was the catalyst here, that perhaps Zack wasn’t just mule-like in his stubbornness in general – though that wouldn’t surprise him – but if _perhaps_ he only acted this way towards _him_.

“Zack,” his voice hesitant this time, more timid than he’d felt in a long time, “why…exactly are you here? Wouldn’t it be better up…there?” He tried to keep the selfish delight from his tone, but the sorrow slipped past him without a hitch.

Zack’s violet-mako gaze enraptured him, _captivated_ him, and held him in place better than any sword to the chest ever had, but the tear stained and suffering eyes merely reminded him of the cliffs; of the blood rain and glimmering sword that was currently rusting in the polluted sleet of the broken metropolis, of _death_.

His hands were shaking violently as he gently covered Zack’s eyes, his fingertips brushing the eyelids closed and stroking across the vivid black lashes. He couldn’t handle looking into his eyes anymore, he was afraid they might just shatter him.

“I’ve never been up there, well not that I remember at least,” Zack’s voice was a strained and eerily calm sound, a tone Cloud would never expect from someone who was slumped on a cold wooden floor and had tears streaming down their face, “as far as I know…I’ve always been with you.”

Covering his eyes didn’t make a difference he realised, as with Zack’s words, he shattered.

It felt like broken glass; as if his skin was tearing apart at the seams and splintering into thousands of pieces, as if his blood was draining from underneath his skin, leaving him hollow and frigid, as if he was being impaled by Masamune again and again and _again_ – he’d never known a sorrow quite like this.

He had been _stuck here?_ Following Cloud around much like his nickname, much like _Cloud_ had followed _him_ all those years ago? He had been cold and alone and broken and had been forced to _watch_ as the world all but ended in front of him?

Without a second thought he vaulted forward, arms wrapping painfully tight across Zack’s shoulders and head buried in his neck. He inhaled his scent like a drug, the spicy perfume of his usual cologne and body wash, the chemical undertone of hair gel and the overpowering and sickly scent of mako that clung to him like a second skin. Tears welled and spilled down his pale and already tracked face in a continuous shower, and a sob rose up his throat, crackled, broken, mangled.

He felt Zack shudder and shake under him for a moment before large, calloused hands gripped the back of his shirt and dug lightly into his skin; it was intoxicating to both of them, the feeling of the other so close and so _real_ in their arms.

It was silent for a few moments, the buzzing of human and mechanical traffic still blaring in the concealed streets below.

A string – or something to that nature – snapped in Zack’s mind, an echo or ripple of a stone padding across fresh water, as he realised something. “Cloud,” hesitant, again, “how did you know I was crying?”

The blonde froze in his arms, the realisation sweeping over him too, “I –“ there was no way he could answer this and sound rational – there was no way he could _acknowledge_ this and still believe he held the last shreds of his sanity that had barely survived the Northern Crater.

How long, exactly, had he been able to see Zack? And how long, exactly, would it have taken him to _notice?_

“Holy shit.” Didn’t even _begin_ to describe it.

Cloud leant back slightly and eyed him, taking in his muscled and hulking form, and noticed, the sun didn’t shine through him anymore, no, it shined _on_ him. His tanned and softly scarred skin was simply _glowing_ in the morning light, his eyes iridescent in the dawn light. He buried his head in Zack’s neck again, inhaling all that he was – _is_. 

“Cloud,” he felt Zack smile – grin – against his hair, “do you think that…?” Despite his barely asked question, Cloud understood; after all, she _would_ do something of this calibre just to make them happy.

“Aerith,” _thank you._

Zack placed his hand gently against his own chest, exactly where the horrid guilt, pain and grief had welled into a stone, one that had fluttered and pulsed in his chest like a palpable heartbeat, and felt the steady and grounding rhythm of a _real_ heart. One that pumped warm blood around his _real_ body, one that beat in his wrist and neck, one that quivered and skipped in his chest when he met Cloud’s cerulean gaze.

They didn’t question it, they’d learnt a few too many times that questioning miracles got them nowhere.

Zack pulled away slightly, grin still in place and eyes sparkling with something other than tears this time. His large hands came to rest on both sides of his face, the callouses gently kissing the soft skin of his cheek, and he leant down. Their foreheads touched together softly, intimately, and Zack’s stare bore into his own. “You, you how I – how I…felt – about –“

And despite all the pain, suffering and death that was still occurring, the harsh mottled black skin of his arm and Denzel’s forehead, and the foreboding sensation that had settled in his stomach since the disease appeared, and kept growing as each day passed, he merely stared back into Zack’s eyes, “hush,” Cloud’s voice was soft again, “I know,” he twisted his face up until their lips lightly grazed, and he spoke against them “and we have all the time in the world to explore that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I can't write angst. Sorry.
> 
> But happy endings for everyone!


End file.
